This contribution reports on a series of studies on reasoning in preschool children with an interactive-dialogic approach, which has empirically demonstrated the impact of interpersonal relationships on cognitive development (Perret-Clermont, 1976, 2022). This raised theoretical questions when trying to explain the processes of shifts in the logical levels (in Piagetian terms) of participants interacting around a common task (Perret-Clermont & Schubauer-Leoni,1981; Light & Perret-Clermont, 1989; Schubauer-Leoni & Grossen, 1993; Grossen, 1994; Iannaccone, 2010). This has led to a reliance on theoretical elements drawn from interlocutory, intersubjective, cultural, and narrative psychology, to conduct micro-genetic qualitative analyses of the meaning making and conceptual activity of children's dialogues (Perret-Clermont & Grossen 1994; Liengme et al.,1994; Schwarz et al., 2008; Arcidiacono & Perret-Clermont, 2010; Tartas et al., 2016). This highlighted the fundamental role played by children's contextualized and dynamic interpretation of situation, task and adults 'questions within the interaction.
Rather than individual socio-cognitive resources, arguments appear as the fruit of interpersonal processes in conversational moves: why do children indulge in argumentative activities? In our research, we faced the striking evidence that children often use argumentation not to defend a standpoint, but as a mean to explore the situation and its meaning, to examine their place and agentivity within the setting, and to discover the interlocutor's point of view (Iannaccone et al., 2019; Convertini et al., 2021). In such cases, their argumentation, if accepted by the interlocutor in spite of the fact that it might seem out of frame (Greco et al., 2017), gives rise to conversational adjustments that seem to be important in the process of understanding reality. It also reveals the agentivity of the child who explores the world of questions, standpoints and reasoning, just as s/he explores the material world of objects and usages (Iannaccone et al., 2024).